Page 4 of Catch of a Lifetime
When the shout came again, closer and far more strident than any seagull, I twisted at the waist to glance over my shoulder at the dunes. Jerry came into view, unmistakeable in his bright yellow wellies. I lifted an arm.
He yelled when he spotted me, and sprinted towards us, his short legs pumping. Whatever he said, I didn’t hear it. The wind that was whisking his ginger-grey hair around snatched his words away and blew them inland.
I returned my attention to Dave. I didn’t want to take my eyes off him for longer than necessary.
His head was still in my lap, his body sprawled out long and limp. I had two fingers tucked into his cool throat, feeling his pulse. It was rocketing along. One hundred and eighty beats per minute, by my last count.
As far as I knew, one hundred and eighty was entirely normal for a merman.
Maybe it was even slow. How would I know? I had a heart condition, and on doctor’s orders I regularly checked my bloodpressure, blood oxygen level, and pulse. I hadn’t ever thought to check Dave’s.
So his pulse was banging away at my trembling fingertips. Didn’t necessarily mean it was a bad thing. Right? For Dave?
It could benormal.
He could befine.
Jerry shouted again. He was close enough now for me to hear distinct words. “For god’s sake, Joe! Is he stuck in a net? Dead? Give me something here!”
The sand vibrated beneath me as Jerry pounded up and crashed to his knees on the other side of Dave. “Shit, my knees.”
That wasn’t addressed to me. I doubted he was aware he’d said it. He said things like that all the time these days. Shit, my knees. Crap, my spine. Fuck, my hip.
He was in his sixties now, and he was not enjoying it. His wife, Marcy, had taken to shoving glucosamine and cod liver oil tablets down his throat every morning. It didn’t seem to be working yet.
He reached out and slapped a hand to Dave’s throat on the other side from mine, fingers going unerringly to his pulse. He let out an agonised gasp of relief and sagged onto the sand. “You could have told me he wasn’t dead, you knob.”
I tried to reply but nothing came out. Nothing other than a garbled little bleat of distress.
Jerry’s angry expression smoothed away. “All right, lad,” he said to me. “It’s all fine. We’ve got him now. We’ll sort him out, don’t you worry.” He glanced down at where Dave was sluggishly oozing from the horrific wound that arced around his side.
The big one, that is. He had a few.
Jerry grimaced. “Aw, poor Dave. He’s right banged up, isn’t he? Bright side: whatever got him spat him out. Eventually. Oh. Don’t throw up.”
“Not going to throw up.” I sleeved my nose and blinked rapidly. The thought of Dave being…of him fighting, and not… “Ow. Jerry. What the hell!”
He’d leaned over Dave’s prone body and poked me in the sternum.
Hard.
“Pull yourself together, Joe. No time for swooning.”
“I am together! This is me together! I am fine!”
“Yeah. Okay. You seem it. Hey, he’s coming around.”
I stopped glaring at Jerry to find that Dave’s eyes were slitted open. The gleam of dark indigo looked almost black in the stark white of his face. He was always pale, even after a summer of sunning himself on my lawn, but not this pale.
Dave sighed, a pained vibration of sound. He cut his gaze to Jerry. His lips hitched at one side and he grunted with satisfaction.
Then he blacked out.
And shifted.
“Well, that’s going to complicate matters,” Jerry said. “Thanks, Dave.”
The good news was that, because we were on my sheltered beach, no one was around to see the giant merman, and feel the overwhelming urge to tell TikTok about it.
